Finally got myself to update this and write another post. If
you’re someone who is working or even interested in digital marketing and/or technology I would
urge you to read my posts, if you’re not then please close this page and
continue doing something that really interests you. The reason I urge people to
read my posts is to help others, you and me learn and discuss our views and
opinions as digital marketing is such a dynamic platform and something that was
a new innovation yesterday would be a redundant activity today.
Something about me – I’ve been a digital marketer for over 6
years now but I can proudly say that I still don’t know everything, you might
wonder that’s a weird thing to be proud off but I feel that if someone believes
that they know everything there could be to know about digital marketing then
they would end up shutting themselves to new technologies and innovations. I’m currently
working with the Mahindra group and have previously worked with Indiabulls,
there is a lot I have learnt from these companies and in accordance with the
agencies I have worked along the way.
Today we are in a country that seems to be a pro SME market
and that’s where comparatively cheaper channels of marketing would help grow
companies, in addition analysis and tracking have become even more important
considering the kind of understanding people have and the ability to track
every penny spent. The one channel that does manages to check both the above
mentioned boxes, is digital. Any business, new or old, small or large have been
focusing a lot more of their spends on digital marketing and this has just been
growing YoY. That brings us to question, “Will offline channels become completely
obsolete in the near future?”. Honestly I don’t believe so, even though most
start-ups and smaller businesses are going the complete digital route but at
some point any consumer would need some-kind-off human intervention in the
buying cycle. Let’s take the Ubers and the Olas of the world, even though their
entire platform is based on technology, they too still need a backend support
system to initially train their drivers and obviously a human intervention at
times when our drivers are rude, we need a refund on our cancelled trips, etc. Another
great example would be Amazon, when they started off operations it was pretty
much a blue ocean for them but a few years later even they are finding it necessary
to open a brick and mortar store.
As per my understanding companies this year have moved up their
digital spends marginally and are currently averaging at around 20 – 25% of
their overall marketing spends across industries, these spends are divided into
2 major buckets, which is mainly lead generation and brand awareness or I like
to call it performance and engagement. Sadly, a large portion of companies
focus most of their budgets on lead generation. Have the days of creating a
brand, increasing brand recall, converting customers to advocates, and the
likes become irrelevant for these brands? Would a user invest a certain amount
in a financial services product without knowing the brand, would a user sign up
to a website or app without even knowing about it, would a customer buy a flat
without knowing the authenticity of a builder, I guess the answer to most of
these questions would be “No!”. Companies will sooner than later realize their
strategy and at some point would have to alter their bifurcation of spends, I
hope.
In continuation, lead generation channels are largely Google
Adwords, Social Media ads (mainly Facebook), Emailers and SMSes, Aggregators
among a few other smaller ones on the other side of things to promote brand
awareness we have Display banners, Content marketing, Programmatic buying, ORM (Online
reputation management) and Video Marketing among a few others. Google and
Facebook hold the maximum percentage of spends by companies and on an average
it accounts to as high as 60%, with the all the other channels just accounting
for 40%. My next few articles would be individually focusing on each of these channels
and my views and take on it.